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Encyclopedia Britannica



GONG (Chinese, gong-gong or tam-tam)

This article appears in Volume V12, Page 233 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: GOA-GRA
GONG (Chinese, gong-gong or tam-tam) , a sonorous or musical
instrument
  of Chinese origin and manufacture, made in the form of a broad thin disk with a deep rim. Gongs vary in
diameter
  from about 20 to 40 in., and they are made of bronze containing a maximum of 22 parts of tin to 78 of copper; but in many cases the proportion of tin is considerably less. Such an alloy, when cast and allowed to cool slowly, is excessively brittle, but it can be tempered and annealed in a peculiar manner. If suddenly cooled from a cherry-red heat, the alloy becomes so soft that it can be hammered and worked on the
lathe
 , and afterwards it may be hardened by re-heating and cooling it slowly. In these properties it will be observed, the alloy behaves in a manner exactly opposite to steel, and the Chinese avail themselves of the known peculiarities for preparing the thin sheets of which gongs are made. They cool their castings of bronze in water, and after hammering out the alloy in the soft state, harden the finished gongs by heating them to a cherry-red and allowing them to cool slowly. These properties of the alloy long remained a
secret
 , said to have been first discovered in Europe by Jean Pierre Joseph d'Arcet at the beginning of the 19th century. Riche and Champion are said to have succeeded in producing tam-tams having all the qualities and timbre of the Chinese
instruments
 . The composition of the alloy of bronze used for making gongs is stated to be as follows:' Copper, 76.52; Tin, 22.43; Lead, o62; Zinc, 0.23; Iron, o18. The
gong
  is beaten with a round, hard, leather-covered pad, fitted on a short stick or handle. It emits a peculiarly sonorous sound, its complex vibrations bursting into a wave-like succession of tones, sometimes shrill, sometimes deep. In China and Japan it is used in religious ceremonies, state processions, marriages and other festivals; and it is said that the Chinese can modify its tone variously by particular ways of striking the disk.
The
gong
  has been effectively used in the orchestra to intensify the impression of fear and horror in melodramatic scenes. The tam-tam was first introduced into a western orchestra by Francois Joseph
Gossec
  in the funeral
march
  composed at the death of Mirabeau in 1791. Gaspard Spontini used it in La Vestale (1807), in the finale of act Ile an impressive scene in which the high pontiff pronounces the anathema on the faithless vestal. It was also used in the funeral music played when the remains of
Napoleon
  the
Great
  were brought hack to France in 1840. Meyerbeer made use of the
instrument
  in the scene of the resurrection of the three nuns in Robert le diable. Four tam-tams are now used at Bayreuth in Parsifal to reinforce the bell
instruments
 , although there is no indication given in the score (see PARSIFAL). The tarp-tam has been treated from its ethnographical side by Franz Heger.' (K. S.)


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